


made to believe / there’s something wrong with me

by longwhitecoats



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27588317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longwhitecoats/pseuds/longwhitecoats
Summary: For the prompt: how Jannah left the First Order. Title is from "Cold War" by Janelle Monáe.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: JoyFest 2020





	made to believe / there’s something wrong with me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saiditallbefore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saiditallbefore/gifts).



Finn hears the screaming start from across the compound. He grabs the nearest medkit and starts running toward it almost before he registers what’s happening. It takes a few seconds for him to realize that this is Resistance training kicking in; it’s finally become subconscious.

In one of the greenhouses, Jannah is sitting on the ground, emitting a continuous scream. He kneels next to her. “Jannah. Jannah. Hey. I’m here. It’s okay.”

For a moment, she doesn’t seem to see him; then she reaches for his hand, clasps it, and just stares wordlessly.

Poe is right behind him. “Hey, what’s wrong? She okay? That was some scream.”

“She’s okay. I think she cut herself.” Finn nods to a pair of hedge trimmers on the ground, bloody. Jannah’s loose trousers are stained red.

“She need a bandage?”

Finn shakes his head. “I’ll do that. I need you to get everyone you can find and bring them here.”

“What?” Poe is staring at the blood.

“Just everyone you can find. Bring them here.”

Poe clearly doesn’t understand, but he nods and runs off. People start arriving a minute or so later. Finn talks softly to Jannah, asking where she’s hurt, and she lifts her leg up so he can wrap a clean bandage around it. The wound could have been bad – leg injuries are dangerous – but she didn’t nick an artery, and she’ll walk again. In fact, she’ll be fine.

Jannah keeps asking him about it over and over. “I can walk? I’ll be able to walk?”

“You’ll be able to run,” Finn says. “You just grazed yourself. And look.” There’s a huge crowd around them now, murmuring. Poe pops through the front row, making eye contact with Finn as if to say, _This is what you wanted, right?_

Finn nods back at him. “Look. They’re all here. None of us are going to leave you. Whether you walk again or not. Okay?”

Jannah nods, and then she bursts into tears.

*

For the next few days, everyone in the compound goes out of their way to say hello to Jannah. Pilots come find her after drills just to chat about their flights; cooks bring her experiments from the kitchens. Jessika teaches her a card game, and Jannah spends a few nights playing it with a rotating collection of merrymakers.

She finds Finn late one of those nights, sitting by a little campfire near the edge of the woods, and sits down next to him.

“Thanks,” she says. “I think I really owe you.”

“Nah,” Finn says. “Don’t even worry about it.” And then, because this is Jannah and he can be honest, he adds, “It’s the Order that owes both of us.”

Jannah stares into the fire, nodding and biting her lip. Then she sighs. “How did you know?” She says. “Did you—” She seems nervous even to be asking it. “Did you get left?”

Finn shakes his head. “I only ever went on one live mission, and I failed out by refusing to murder innocent people. But I wasn’t wounded.” He turns to look at her, knowing he has to be gentle, but also knowing she wants to talk. “Did you?”

She nods. “Yeah. By accident. It’s—that’s how I got out. Someone fell on top of me, covered in blood, and they thought I was too wounded to fight too, so they just—they left me.”

“I’m so sorry.”  
  
“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s—” Finn shakes his head. “I left someone too. He was dead when I left him. But still. I left. I didn’t bury him. And I should have. No one should be left.” He turns to Jannah. “When I saw you, I knew that’s what you were afraid of. That we would follow orders. That if you were unfit for battle, we would just leave you.”

Jannah nods, swallowing hard. “Yeah. I couldn’t believe it when it happened. They boarded the ship and... they were just gone.” She rubs her face with her hands. “I was never anything more than an interchangeable part to them. I was a bullet.”

Finn holds out his hand, palm up. “I promise,” he says, “we will never let that happen to you again. I will never let that happen. Okay?”

Jannah takes his hand and squeezes it. “Okay.”

They sit by the fire in silence for a while, until it gutters, and then wander back to the compound, where a few late-nighters invite them for a round of Resistance songs, and Jannah sings louder than any of them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to sasha_feather for an amazingly swift beta read. Saiditallbefore, I hope you enjoy this treat! <3


End file.
